Berry in Las Vegas

South African referee, Stu Berry went from the IRB Sevens tournament in Wellington, New Zealand, to the IRB Sevens tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada, a particularly good tournament for him. He writes.

So it was onto a plane from the superb tournament in Wellington and off to Auckland to catch out flight to Los Angeles, and then connect onto Las Vegas…..sin city (apparently). The flight was really good across to the States, but weird at the same time, as we left Auckland on Monday 14.00 and arrived in America the same day, at 09.00 (5 hours before we left). It was the day after the Super Bowl Final, and with the team from New Orleans winning it for the first time in the competition’s history, there was a huge buzz around the whole of the USA.

So we arrived in the much talked about Las Vegas, a destination that any socialite would want to visit at some stage during their lives. The movie “The Hangover” seemed to be the lasting impression that everyone had on arrival, and I am pleased to report that nobody did anything remotely close to what happened during that movie.

The lead-up to the event was a good one. From a refereeing perspective, we have a post-event review session as a group, where issues at the tackle in particular, as well as foul play (dangerous tackle and trips) were discussed at length. One-on-one sessions also took place during the week with Keith Lawrence, the head of referees on the Sevens circuit, to discuss the Wellington tournament and each referees stats during the games there. These one-on-one and video review sessions are great, as you really get to analyse yourself and the decisions quite intensely.

The Sam Boyd Stadium was the location of the tournament, and there were a few issues before the event around the pitch width, as the stadium is primarily an American Football field (which is narrower than a rugby field), and so the field ended up being around 10m narrower than the one in Wellington. In the end, it didn’t really affect the tournament at all, and there were some great games.

On Day 1 I had Kenya (who was the best-supported team at the tournament) twice against Chile and Samoa respectively, as well as England and Japan. Day 1 went well, and with a good crowd and festive atmosphere, we all looked forward to day 2.

I started the day with a Cup quarterfinal, Wales vs Samoa, which Samoa ended up winning comfortably after going behind early on. I think that the physical approach of the Samoans in taking the ball into contact on a narrower field was one of their key success points. I then landed the cup semifinal between New Zealand and Kenya, and it was a superb atmosphere, with the Kiwi’s (series log leaders) out-muscling the Kenyans.

I had come to these two tournaments with the approach of getting into the Sevens circuit and then target the London and Edinburgh legs to get some good games, and so I was very happy when I got cup semifinals in each tournament, and to then be given the final for the first ever tournament in Las Vegas was a huge honor and one of the highlights of my reffing career to date. The increase in half length (from 7 to 10 minutes) means your concentration needs to be maintained for that little bit extra. The occasion was a great one, with a superb atmosphere in a stadium which felt like the crowd was right on top of us.

Samoa and New Zealand took the game to each other, and it was very physical for a Sevens game, but a great contest between two in form teams. The difference in the end was two risky passes that resulted in two intercept tries by Samoan speedster, Mikaelele Pessameno.

The past two weeks have been really great, and it feels like I have been away for some time now, but it was really great. The setup within the series is superb, and it was great to be a part of, with a top class group of guys as referees.

I look forward to the London and Edinburgh legs at the end of May.